The present invention relates to an apparatus for automatically performing the temperature treating processing of a biological sample and, more particularly, relates to, in the field of diagnosing and inspecting a gene, an apparatus for automatically dissolving a biological sample in the operation for extracting, isolating and refining a gene from a biological sample, in particular, a mycobacterium species among bacteria.
In recent years, in accordance with the development of the gene research, the diagnosis of gene such as infectious disease, cancer, hereditary disease or the like and the various methods using the gene such as appraisal or analysis of parent and children, inspection for identifying a person or the like have been widely employed.
The gene analysis is considered to be increasingly developed from now since the gene analysis is superior in the expeditiousness, the detection of small amount and the speedy detection in comparison with the conventional cultivation assays of bacteria and the conventional immunological assays using the antigen-antibody reaction or the like. In particularly, in the field of the medical gene analysis, in accordance with the increase of the infectious disease such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus (HBV, HCV), tuberculosis or the like, the development of the analysis kit or the like has been expanded rapidly and the demands for the mass processing of samples has been increased.
In this manner, since the gene analysis is an excellent analysis method, the gene analysis has been put to practical use. However, the gene analysis is complicated and hence a skilled person is required to perform the analysis. In such a circumstance, it is has been desired to perform the gene analysis automatically in view of the simplicity, the labor saving, the mass processing, and the safety of a person in charge of the analysis.
The aforesaid gene inspection is performed by the four processes, that is, (1) the process of extracting nucleic acid from an specimen, (2) the process of isolating the nucleic acid, (3) the process of DNA amplification (there are some method such as the DNA probe method which do not require this process), and (4) the process of detecting the target nucleic acid. In the aforesaid four processes, the automatic devices for performing the processes (3) and (4) automatically have been developed.
Further, the automatic devices for performing the aforesaid processes (1) and (2) automatically are disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei-8-15437, Japanese Patent Kokai (Unexamined Laid-Open) No. Hei-4-99477 and Japanese Patent Kokai (Unexamined Laid-Open) No. Hei-3-224474.
However, the aforesaid automatic devices performs the process of isolating nucleic acid from a cell mainly as to a virus. Since the viruses such as HIV, HBV, HCV and the cells of animals are covered by relatively weak cell membranes or coat protein, nucleic acid can be isolated easily from a cell. For example, virus RNA can be obtained in a manner that guanidine hydrochloride as the denaturant is added to serum and then heated for 10 minutes at 60.degree. C. (see
Since the bacteria are covered by cell walls, there is a case requiring particular process such as enzymatic treatment, heat processing, mechanical grinding breakage, sonication or the like. In particular, since a tuberculosis includes much mycolic acid within cell walls to form the strong cell walls, it is difficult to extract a gene therefrom. In this case, the aforesaid devices are required to perform the breakage processing of a cell body manually.